Well, we made it to Las Vegas and back in 36 hours without seeing anything too shady or gambling, unless you count the chance we took on traffic. (We lost that bet – it took 6.5 hours to get there on a Friday afternoon.)

Our trip is featured as a travel article on wonderful family travel resource TheVacationGals.com. Some of the pictures that didn’t make the cut are in the slideshow below.

As with any story, there are also words that don’t fit, so allow me to include those here. There’s not much between Barstow and Vegas, and of course our kids had to use the bathroom in the middle of nowhere, but luckily, a “market” appeared on the horizon in the vicinity of a place called Afton Canyon.

Andrew Roe was running this no-horse town seemingly alone, manning the cash register in the little market inside the giant building that also housed a bar, a pool table, and a drum set. He told us about rock hunting in the nearby canyons, and showed us his polished fossilized trees, and gave the kids chunks of raw hematite. Stewart wants to plan a return trip with Kyle just do go rock hunting!

We loved the roadtrip, despite the slow crawl between the 134 and the turnoff at the 15. We were in a Kia Sorento that I drove for a week courtesy of DriveSTI, and we had more room, a nice clean interior, and a nav system – all three are novelties for our family. Plus, we had a brand new iPad and several other electronic devices that kept the kids (mostly) occupied and peaceful.

Read about where we stayed (Tahiti Village, 2 miles south of the main strip) and what we did (lounged on the lazy river and attended a performance of Mystère in the post Las Vegas Weekend With Kids at The Vacation Gals website.